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72 posts categorized "Shaadi"

FINANCIAL EXPRESS - Apr 24 - No more are profiles on a Shaadi.com or Jeevansathi.com handled by parents or aunts as youngsters are getting conscious about connecting with the right person. Further helping them achieve this goal are dating apps such as Floh, TrulyMadly, Tinder, Happn, etc. While dating apps target 18-24 year olds, matrimonial sites are aiming for people 24+. "We don't see people moving away from our models to dating apps to find a partner. In fact, there is a very small number of people that overlaps," asserts Gourav Rakshit, CEO, Shaadi.com. Players in both segments are dependent on a freemium model.

QZ - Mar 14 - Matrimonial websites in India aren't what they used to be. Earlier this month, Shaadi.com, one of India's largest matrimonial sites, launched an online campaign titled "Ladies First," which encourages women to make the first move. "Our audience is changing every day," said Gourav Rakshit, CEO at Shaadi.com. Similarly, a Jeevansaathi.com campaign last year focused on encouraging women to get online to find a match. India's sizeable youth population and growing smartphone penetration have meant that casual dating apps, too, are doing brisk business. India is Tinder's fastest-growing market in Asia, even as home-grown apps like TrulyMadly and Woo make merry. Yet, there are some things that haven't changed. It is still a conservative society where arranged marriages are still the norm.

VCCIRCLE - Dec 20 - People Group, the owner of online matchmaking site Shaadi.com, has acquired Frivil, a dating app owned by Delhi-based Thrill Pte Ltd. for an undisclosed amount. In January 2015, People Group had acquired 25% stake in the company for $1M and in a related deal, Fropper, owned by People Group, was brought under Thrill. Frivil's product, intellectual property rights and brand will become part of People Group, however the dating app will continue to operate as a separate entity from Shaadi. Frivil's founders Josh Israel and Devin Serago will help to integrate the app into the new parent company, but will not be joining the firm.

THE ECONOMIC TIMES - Nov 4 - In all, TrulyMadly, Woo and Tinder have ~1M monthly active users in India, according to a report in tech journal iGadgetsworld. While data for matrimonial sites were not available, experts foresee dating apps catching up. Ritesh Banglani, who led an investment in TrulyMadly last year, said 25-35% of the "users on dating apps are looking for marriage". The trend of arranged marriages is likely to continue to decline and the logical next step for matrimonial sites would be to stay relevant either by innovating or acquire a leading dating app in India." Matrimony.com, which operates BharatMatrimony, acquired Matchify in April last year but CEO Murugavel Janakiraman insists that dating apps aren't able to scale up or make money here. "We tried out Matchify but India has a largely traditional user base so these apps are not going to work here," he said. Gourav Rakshit, CEO of Shaadi.com, conceded that although the site gets ~11K new registrations every day, many of its users are on dating apps as well.

THE NATIONAL - Oct 29 - In India arranged marriages continue to be the norm. A 2013 survey revealed that 75% of young Indians prefer arranged marriages. ~22M Indians use matrimonial sites such as BharatMatrimony, Shaadi.com and Jeevansathi. "India has 100M people over the age of 21 who are looking for partners. For them, matrimonial sites, with parents interfering, are not cool," says Hitesh Dhingra, co-founder of dating app TrulyMadly. TrulyMadly launched in India in 2014. It verifies personal details of its users because fake profiles are a big problem in India. ~3M Indians have downloaded dating app Woo. Woo demonstrates the rise of home-grown dating apps in India. While Tinder is well known, the indigenous online offerings are tailored to Indian cultural needs. Other apps include Aisle, which describes itself as a cross between a dating and a matrimonial app. Another offering is Floh (Find Life Over Here), which operates in 15 cities and five countries.

HINDUSTAN TIMES - Sep 8 - Online matchmaking in India has come a long way since shaadi.com launched in 1996. Tinder, launched in India in 2014, followed by Indian dating apps TrulyMadly (2015) and ekCoffee (2016). The earliest queer dating platform, PlanetRomeo, launched worldwide in 2002. It claims 3M users globally and India comprises 7% of that. Grindr, with 10M users worldwide, recorded a gradual increase from 11k to 69k monthly users between 2011 and 2015 from India. The figures convinced Scruff, an American dating app for men, to enter India in July this year.

BESTMEDIA INFO - May 19 - After TrulyMadly and Woo launching in 2014, Tinder came up with a storm in January 2016 and destabilised the market to some extent. Tinder saw 97% growth in active user base in the last few months and 400% increase in app downloads since its launch in India. TrulyMadly gets new users every day and they spend ~45 minutes daily on the app. Woo too has ~2.5 M users. Sachin Bhatia, CEO of TrulyMadly, said, "We are looking at a major disruption in matrimonial websites." Co-founder and CEO, Woo, believes in co-existence. "Dating apps are going to co-exist for the next 15-20 years. Eventually, the younger audience will stop using these websites. I don't think the country is in a situation that anything is going to get replaced soon." But Aditya Save, CMO of Shaadi.com, said, "I don't see dating apps as a competition."

BLOG SHAADI - Apr 1 - LoveBit works on a patented biometric technology that monitors pulse rate and heartbeat as well as the levels of neurochemicals and dopamine levels when attracted to somebody. When a person wearing a LoveBit comes across any person on Shaadi.com or meets that person face-to-face, who is a potentially perfect match, the wearable detects the rise in the user's bodily metrics. The wearable is priced at Rs 2,999 ($45) and is all set to hit the market by mid-April.

DEAL STREET ASIA - Mar 17 - "I'm not done yet," said Shaadi.com founder Anupam Mittal when asked if he was looking at another entrepreneurial venture. Mittal, who is an active angel investor in several startups, started Shaadi.com in 1996 before forming People Group to look at other opportunities in technology space. Early last year, he sold dating app Fropper and property listing portal Makaan.com. In July 2015, he stepped down as CEO of Shaadi.com to focus on global expansion and new areas of business. Mittal feels 2016 will be a good year to invest. He says the current year is likely to see fewer, but larger investments by him.

BUSINESSWIRE INDIA - July 17 - The average Indian spends ~$25K on the entire matchmaking and wedding ceremony process. The wedding services market in the country is worth ~$36B. New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Investment Opportunities, reveals that the top 3 Indian matchmaking sites have accounted for ~5M marriages in the last decade. Shaadi.com has 10K new registrations a day and 3M active users looking for spouses.

VCCIRCLE - July 9 - People Group founder Anupam Mittal has stepped down as CEO of online matrimonial portal Shaadi.com to focus on global expansion and new areas of business. Gourav Rakshit, who was the COO, takes over as Shaadi.com's new CEO. People Group plans to raise a big round of PE funding later this year. Mittal, who is an active angel investor in several startups, started Shaadi.com in 1996 before forming People Group to look at other opportunities in technology space. Mittal has made angel investments in ~60 startups.

THEHINDUBUSINESSLINE - May 25 - Shaadi, the Mumbai-based site, a part of People Group, is exploring opportunities in the South-East Asian markets like Vietnam and Malaysia, besides developed and unorthodox markets like the US. "We are looking to make at least 2-3 acquisitions overseas in the next few years," said Anupam Mittal, Founder and CEO of People Group. He also added that the company has set aside ₹60-70 crore for these acquisitions.

DAIJIWORLD - May 1 - After the success of Angry Brides online game in 2012, Indian matchmaking service Shaadi.com has launched Shaadi Cares, a social initiative to raise awareness of marital abuse and help the victims. To tackle issues related to dowry, shaadi.com has simultaneously launched its ‘How much dowry are you worth?’ online social initiative.

ECONOMIC TIMES - Jan 26 - People Group has bought about 25% stake in dating applications maker Thrill in a cash and stock deal valued at close to $1 million. As a part of the transaction, Mumbai-based People Group has also merged its dating platform Fropper with Delhi-based Thrill Applications.

OPW INTERVIEW - Jan 6 - Simplymarry.com is the POF.com of Indian Matrimonials. Sanjeev Kumar is the Head Of Business for SimplyMarry, which sits under the wing of The Times of India Group. Here's my interview with him. - Mark Brooks

Tell us about the Indian matrimonials market?The online matrimonial industry in India came into existence in early 2000's and has now become a de facto option for people to find their perfect match.

In the initial years the growth was led due to cultural, social and economic factors such as the emergence of more and more nuclear families instead of joint families, people migrating to metros for work etc. This was followed by a phase where the growth was fueled by factors such as increased internet penetration, convenience and reach the internet gave. Currently it’s the third phase of growth for the online matrimonial industry which is fueled by the internet enabled smartphones, and a huge young population which choose for themselves rather than their parent finding a match for them.

What's your thoughts on Shaadi and Bharat Matrimony?Bharat Matrimony is the leader in the online matrimonial industry followed by Shaadi and both have done very well and have contributed to the overall industry growth as well. In the last 15+ year’s most online matrimonial players have focused on web and continue to run similar product and business models. But now the companies need to think mobile first and both the product and business models need to change as what works on web might not work on mobile. The company which is able to do that and lead on the mobile front will become the overall leader in the next couple of years.

How are you disrupting the matrimonials business with Simply Marry?We started with a belief that the online matrimonial industry is bound for disruption – reason being - the mobile and fast changing needs of young marriageable population. The current business models are subscription based where even if two users are mutually interested in each other they cannot take the conversation ahead unless one of them is a paid member – which is a mere 3-5% of the total active base.

We started with the hypothesis that:

The existing business model (paid subscription to contact) is fundamentally broken as it acts as a blocker for potential matches to reach out and start a conversation which might lead into a successful marriage. This leads to bad consumer experience.

Users today, and increasingly so, will not want to pay for – contact details or initiating a conversation. Connections on leading platforms such as FB, LinkedIn etc are free; it’s supposed to be free.

Thus we changed or business model and made our platform completely free from subscription. With Simplymarry.com – mutually interested users can start an instant conversation absolutely free without the need to buy a subscription. This has had a huge impact on user satisfaction and our metrics. We will continue to build on this value proposition and will leverage mobile capabilities to create successful connections & conversations between potential matches. They can then eventually decide to get married.

How do you drive new membership?Marriage, unlike dating, is mostly a one time affair with lower life cycles - 6 months or so. Thus the business needs to continuously acquire users and with more active user base network effect kicks in. Also in India arranged marriages still mostly happen within the community - religion, caste being important criteria. Thus concurrent matching profiles is very important. For example, if we have 5000 profiles with certain demographics (religion, age, caste, income, education, location etc.) we need to acquire profiles matching their requirements for the network effect to kick in. This also will drive per user activity - contact or connections being initiated.

Thus our acquisition strategy is aligned to optimize on this. A huge amount of data analysis and automation is done so that the spends are optimized to achieve and build strength in the targeted segments or communities. So instead of spreading thin across communities we target segments where we have inherent strength and lead on those segments.

For paid matrimonial sites - this strategy helps better paid conversions (subscriptions) as well - as users will find more relevant and mutually interested profiles and would hence pay up to contact. The paid model creates misaligned incentives for paid matrimony sites as they make money when 2 free users become mutually interested in each other and are keen to talk. But Simplymarry being a free portal, wherein we allow users to contact and communicate with mutually interested matches for free, we are currently more focused on user activity and creating a seamless platform for 2 potential matches to connect and communicate.

And monetization?We have a monetization strategy in place which I cannot talk about at this point in time - but it will be built around giving users more value and not around subscription as we fundamentally believe that the existing business model of paid matrimonial sites is broken.

DNA INDIA - Aug 10 - When asked about the ideal way to find a partner, 50% respondents said they prefer relying on parents, according to a survey by Shaadi.com. More than 31% youngsters prefer searching online to find a partner of their choice.

FORBES - Apr 2 - In India, marriage sites list details such as blood type, exact day and minute of birth, photos, annual income, HIV status and more. The person sharing all this intimate data is often not the prospective bride or groom. At Shaadi.com, ~30% of the 30M listings come from siblings and parents. Some Indian sites do not even require creating a profile before accessing details about others.

FINANCIAL TIMES - Dec 12 - Shaadi.com was launched in 1996 when founder Anupam Mittal’s mother was trying to arrange a marriage for him. Shaadi.com now attracts ~10K new members every day. The registration form asks for users community, sub-community and the colour of their skin. Some 20% of registrations are done by a friend or relative. Shaadi also opened physical retail centres across India to boost registrations. The matchmaking industry generates $32.3B every year.